


On Ice

by BlossomsintheMist



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fun, Ice Skating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-12
Updated: 2015-01-12
Packaged: 2018-03-07 06:54:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3165503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlossomsintheMist/pseuds/BlossomsintheMist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Even super-assassins can't be perfect at everything they do the first time.  Even with ballet practice.  Or: Bucky and Natasha practice ice-skating.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Ice

“I know I can lift you, it’s the doing it like this I’m not so sure about,” James says, frowning down at his hands a moment as his skates make lazy figure-eights on the ice.  They’re just skating in circles, really, at the moment, holding hands while he practices going backwards and turning.  The gloves cover both his hands, but the metal of the left arm peeks through between the glove and the sleeve of his t-shirt.

“On the ice?” Natasha asks, smiling.  “Oh, come on, James, it can’t be harder than doing it on a motorcycle.”

He gives her a dubious look.  “Sure it can,” he says.  “And I usually don’t lift you up with one hand while I’m driving.”

“But you could,” Natasha points out.  Pretty easily, too, she’s willing to bet.  “That’s what matters.”  She smiles at him.  “It’ll be fun, it’s been fun so far, hasn’t it?”

He grins at that.  “It has been,” he admits.  “I just …” he shrugs, squeezes her hands a little bit more.  “I don’t wanna drop you.”

“I’ve endured worse than being dropped on the ice,” Natasha tells him.

“There are blades and things,” James says, dubiously.

“There are blades and things in our bed, most times,” Natasha tells him.

James shakes his head at her, smiling now.  “Well, since you’re so determined to do this,” he says, and puts both hands on her waist, stroking his thumbs along her sides.  “The last one went okay.”

It had—it had been thrilling, his hand under her as he swung her up, braced on his shoulders, and held her there as his skates sped them around the rink.  Like ballet only faster, moving, almost flying.  Not as crisp and clean, but faster, more intense.  She loves it.  This time she wants to go higher.

“Right,” James says, and takes a deep breath, firms his hands on her sides, and she takes a deep breath with him, watching his arms for when to push herself up, into his hold.

His arms are strong, both of them are, and it’s not that she has no fear that he’ll drop her—accidents happen—it’s that she doesn’t care.  That’s the kind of trust they have.  And he gets her up, metal hand under her and her knee on his shoulder, then up all the way, but they’re not quite balanced right (her fault as much as his, she knows it before she’s even halfway there), and so she’s only in the air above him for a few moments before he’s overbalancing, his right skate slipping out and back.

The impact on the ice is hard, but they both know how to fall, and they’ve had much worse; it barely hurts in comparison to jumping from a moving vehicle, for example.  James breaks the impact for her nicely, body warm and heavy beneath hers, which is obviously on purpose, and they land tangled up in each other, Natasha punching his shoulder lightly for rolling over into her way to cushion her.  “No one asked you to be chivalrous,” she tells him, already smiling.

“It was my fault!” he says, and then they’re laughing, for whatever reason, even as they slide backward across the ice, and he grins up at her, reaching up with both hands to push the tendrils of hair that have come loose from her bun back behind her ears, cup her face in his gloved hands.

“It was not your fault,” she tells him, smiling down at him, “it was both of ours.”

“That’s fair,” he says, still laughing, “I guess so; God, I can’t frigging believe how much we screw up at this,” and she has to lean down to kiss him—the ice is cold, but they won’t feel it for another few minutes, and this kind of stolen, cold-stung kiss can’t wait.

She bites a little at his bottom lip as she pulls away, then pushes herself back up onto her feet, sliding backwards a bit on the ice and brushing herself off.  “Want to try again?” she asks him, and he’s already getting up, too, and reaching for her.

“Why not?” he asks, and takes her hand, spinning her around when she ducks under his arm, and she laughs and uses the spin to pull him after her.


End file.
